Have your say on bin changes

A consultation on possible changes to waste collections in Central Bedfordshire – including three-weekly black bin pick-ups and a £40 annual charge for garden waste – is under way.

Some of the options being mooted by Central Beds Council could see new services introduced, such as food waste and glass, while others suggest changes to the current arrangements for recycling, domestic waste (black bins) and garden waste. The council wants to hear residents’ views on these.

The council currently spends £14million a year on collecting and disposing of waste from over 118,000 households. That amounts to around 7% of the council’s budget, or 9% of residents’ council tax.

Because the current bin contracts are about to come to an end, the council is seeking ways to reduce the cost of the service; increase efficiencies; and increase recycling levels.

The options consulted on could save the council over £2million every year.

There are three different options being considered. Option one continues the current arrangements; in option two, cardboard and paper would be put into a separate box; and in option three, glass collections would be rolled out to all residents and collected in a separate box. Residents’ recycling would continue to be collected every fortnight under all of the options. The council is also considering a weekly food waste collection to all households.

A recent study showed more than half of the black bin contents the council collects could have been recycled. More efforts to recycle, along with the suggested changes to the collections, could help reduce the amount of waste going into peoples’ black bins, and allow the council to move to collecting domestic waste (black bins) every three weeks rather than fortnightly. This would deliver significant savings, it says.

The council is also consulting on charging £40 annually for optional fortnightly garden waste collections. Councils are not required to collect garden waste separately, but many have been doing so.

Cllr Budge Wells, Deputy Executive Member for Community Services, said: “Waste collection and disposal contracts are long-term contracts, and as such we don’t often get a chance to make big changes. Our contracts come to an end in 2019, so we’ve been looking at what we might want to change.

“We really need to increase recycling. Our current rate is 46%. We want to increase that to at least 50% by 2020. Recycling is not only environmentally friendly, but is also much cheaper.

“But before making any decisions about these changes, we want to know what our residents think.”

You can have your say online at www.centralbedfordshire.gov.uk/bin-changes or you can pick up a paper copy from your local library or tidy tip.

A video talking residents through the proposed options is also available on the website. The consultation is open until 5pm on April 20. The options in the consultation only affect residents in houses - there are currently no changes planned for flats with communal bins.